


Come Together

by Exdraghunt



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exdraghunt/pseuds/Exdraghunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a regular afternoon in Walter Manor until The Jon started sneezing. Now the humans and the bots are going to learn more about each other than they ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started out as a fairly normal day in Walter Manor. The Jon and Sam were taking a break from their adventures in Kazoo Land to visit, so the entire band had come over to chat and celebrate. Even Matt, their new drummer, had been dragged along to the party. 

Everyone was gathered in the living room watching a movie when The Jon had shifted uncomfortably, arched his back, and –sneezed.- Everyone stopped and stared. A robot shouldn’t even have the ability to sneeze but The Jon had already reared back for another, his hat tumbling off his head with the force. For a bot with reality-warping abilities, any kind of deviation from normal operation was a reason to be worried. 

The Jon sneezed again, and in the kitchen a stack of ham sandwiches simply appeared out of nowhere. Another sneeze and they came to life, yipping and yapping like small dogs until a third sneeze changed them all into inanimate oranges. 

“Are you okay there, pal?” The Spine put an arm around his younger brother and pulled him closer. 

The brassold automaton nodded slightly, unable to speak as he sneezed once more. The television suddenly vanished, replaced by a vase of flowers. The others of the band gathered around the couch in concern as The Jon reared back for his largest sneeze yet and everything went dark. 

 

The Spine groaned as he came back to consciousness. He had been sitting on the couch, but now he seemed to be lying on his back on the floor. How had he gotten down here? Everything felt. . . weird. There was definitely something wrong with his systems. 

He slowly sat up, which only reinforced the fact that something was off. The Spine opened his eyes and froze at the sight of –himself- slumped over on the couch. He looked down, breath catching at the sight of very human legs and flesh covered hands. And oh god, he was –breathing.- The Spine reached up to touch his face, reveling in the feeling of soft, human skin instead of the hard titanium alloy he was plated with. 

Steve was the next of the group to wake up, wincing at the loud ticking of clockwork and creaking of gears. What, had he ended up laying against Rabbit? Whatever he was draped over, it was hard. 

The mass of blonde curls in his face proved that it was The Jon he was leaning on. Steve sputtered and pulled back, then flinched when a plume of steam hissed right in his face. When had he gotten on the couch? 

The Jon’s bright blue eyes flickered on, focusing on Steve’s face with some confusion, “Ugh, Rabbit? How did I get on the couch?”

“Rabbit? I’m Steve,” Except that the voice coming out of his mouth was definitely Rabbits, and not his own familiar one. Steve looked down at his hands and gasped in shock, more steam escaping from his mouth. His hands were a hard copper, edged with green oxidation at the joints. Plating rattled as he reached up to feel his face, metal clinking against metal. Even his sense of touch was wrong, dulled down and warped. But he could still feel the cold metal that now made up his faceplates, and the deep holes where he should’ve had cheeks but now only had steam vents. 

“Steve? What happened to you? What happened to me?!” The bot who looked like The Jon was staring at his hands and looked on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Uh, Jon?” Steve hesitantly laid a hand on the other bot’s shoulder. 

“I’m not Jon, I’m Matt!” The former drummer was trying to take deep breathes with lungs he didn’t have any more and was only succeeding in making his bronze plating shake audibly. 

“Well, that explains a lot,” They turned to see someone who looked like Michael Reed sitting on the floor staring at them, running his hands over his forearms self-consciously, “It seems that we’ve swapped bodies.”


	2. Chapter 2

Did I mention that this was probably going to be pretty dumb and cracky? 

\------ 

A few minutes later, the various band members had been woken up and acquainted with the situation. All of the humans were now in the bodies of the robots, and vice versa. It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but at least everyone was in one piece with their limbs in the proper places. 

“Okay, so we’ve swapped bodies,” Michael was seated awkwardly on the couch, still getting the hang of the long, lanky limbs of The Spine’s body, “What do we do now?”

“We switch back!” Rabbit was sulking in one of the room’s armchairs and pushed a dreadlock out of his face irritably as he spoke, “Sooner th’ better.”

“I don’t know if we can,” The Spine stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed. The serious expression was somewhat ruined by the bright purple tank top he wore, “The Jon’s void did this. We might just have to wait for this to reverse itself.” Because The Jon’s void caused all sorts of strangeness, but its effects were never permanent. Everything usually went back to normal after a week or two. 

“Just wait it out?” Matt had only been with the band a month or so and wasn’t used to the sheer amount of crazy that was considered usual in the Walter Manor, “Wait it out?! That’s your advice?”

“It’ll go back to normal,” Sam nervously adjusted his bowler, flinching when steam puffed out of the stovepipe on his head. The fact that he and HatchWorth had switched was extremely entertaining to The Jon, who had been cooking up theories about moustache resonance, “It always does.”

A loud growl interrupted the conversation and everyone turned to look at The Jon, who blinked in surprise and pressed hands to his abdomen.

“I, uh, I think I’m hungry,” The former bot said with a note of surprise, “Do we have any sandwiches?”

And that was another problem. Peter the Fifth and Annie were gone, off having some alone time away from the manor, and their movie night party had exhausted most of the edible food. If they were going to have four extra humans living there until this ended, groceries would need to be purchased. 

\ “I’ll go make you one,” Sam stood slowly, taking a moment to cope with the fact that he had gyros and gears to balance him now instead of an inner ear. 

“I’ll help!” HatchWorth tried to lever himself off the floor but wasn’t quite as successful. Arms wheeling, he overbalanced and fell into Sam, who couldn’t cope with the sudden weight and they both ended up in a heap on the ground. 

“Ooops!” The Jon laughed at the sight and hopped out of his chair, swaying on his feet for a moment before finding his balance. 

The two mustachioed gentlemen carefully got back up, a task which involved much swaying and clutching each other for support, then the three trooped out of the room headed in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Okay, so we need to go get groceries,” The Spine was trying to keep a calm head and make a plan, “What else do humans need?” 

“Is anyone fuh-forgetting that we have a concert next week?” Steve frowned when his voice box caught and stuttered. Because he, of course, would end up in the body of the oldest, most ill-repaired robot. 

There was a groan from the others in the room. They couldn’t just cancel the concert, they needed the money and the publicity that came with the event. Plus, the playhouse would probably never host them again if they backed out now. 

“I guess we’ll have to rehearse,” The Spine decided. 

“Are you cuh-crazy?!” Steve was incredulous. It wouldn’t be terrible for the others, they all knew how to play eachother’s instruments. But he hadn’t played an instrument since high school, and certainly didn’t know the accordian or the melodica. He was a sound engineer, not a musician! And there was no way he was letting Rabbit anywhere near his sound board. 

Michael didn’t quite believe what he was hearing either, but couldn’t fault The Spine’s decision. The Walter’s had several patents that brought in money, but really did depend on income from the band’s ticket, merch, and CD sales. He was fairly confident that he could sing The Spine’s parts if he needed to, and knew that Sam could handle HatchWorth’s. The only sticking point was Steve. 

A clock chimed somewhere in the depths of the manor, alerting the occupants that it was 2 o’clock in the morning and therefor far past the time that anyone should be making important decisions about anything. 

“Okay, how about we go to bed and talk more about this in the morning?” Michael suggested, “Who knows, maybe this’ll be over when we wake up.”

Sleeping arrangements was another problem that they didn’t quite anticipate. The Spine was the only one with an actual bed in his bedroom that he could still use. Fortunately there were enough guest rooms in the manor to accommodate everyone, which led straight into their next problem. 

The current-humans were already tired, their bodies having been up all night watching movies, but robotic bodies didn’t experience “tiredness” the way humans did. It took Michael, who had the most experience with the automaton’s systems, several minutes to figure out how to power down. The others weren’t quite as lucky. 

“Look, can’t y-y-y-y-you just do it manually?” Steve asked after 15 minutes of having an increasingly frustrated Rabbit try and explain how powering off worked. 

“He could, but we can’t do it every night until you turn back,” The Spine said as he walked in, having finally gotten Matt calmed down and powered off, “It’s really not that hard.”

“Well you’ve been doing it for a hundred years. I-I-I’ve been in this body for what, an hour?” 

Eventually, though, everyone got settled in various rooms in the Manor and bedded down for the night. The Spine laid down in his large bed, running a hand over the silk sheets. He had originally picked them for their texture, but now he could really feel how soft they were. 

It was so weird being human. He had imagined what it would be like, of course, but it couldn’t compare to the actual thing. On one hand, his sense of touch and taste was ramped up beyond what he had thought possible, but at the same time he felt so blind. No longer could he see on the ultra violet or infrared spectrums, or hear the highest and lowest of pitches. Most of all, though, he couldn’t feel his brothers through their shared wireless connection. For the first time since his creation, he couldn’t feel the comforting presence of his fellow automatons in his soul. It was surprisingly lonely.


	3. Chapter 3

Waking up as a human was a truly unpleasant experience. The Spine groaned and blinked burred eyes against the sunlight filtering into the room. He sat up slowly, feeling like he was moving through molasses as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and sat there for a moment, trying very hard not to fall over backwards and go back to sleep. No wonder it was always such a fight to get their human bandmates to wake up on time. 

First things first, the purple tank top and gray sweatpants had to go. Fortunately, Michael was quite tall and could fit a decent portion of The Spine’s wardrobe. 

Appropriately clothed in nice slacks and a dress shirt, The Spine wandered downstairs and found another reason to curse the lack of a wireless connection. In the night Rabbit had a nightmare, not the most unusual occurrence, but this time their rooms had been too far apart to hear his shouts and the oldest bot had been left to suffer through it alone. 

The Spine felt guilt pierce through him when he saw Rabbit’s pale and sweaty face, the stricken expression so out of place on Steve’s visage. 

“I’m sorry,” The Spine offered lamely, unsure if his older brother would accept physical comfort in their current bodies. 

“It’s okay, Th’ Spine,” Rabbit patted him on the shoulder, “Not yer fault.”

“Did some-thing happen?” HatchWorth walked out of his borrowed room, still wearing the same clothes Sam had on the day before. That would be another thing they would need to go get. Clothing. 

“It’s fine, Hatchy,” Rabbit gave an unconvincing smile and went to wake up The Jon.

 

It took a couple minutes, but soon everyone had been gathered downstairs in the kitchen for breakfast and planning. While Sam cooked up some breakfast, the others sat down to discuss battle plans. 

“Okay, so first things I think we should get groceries,” Sam put in as he scrounged around for edible things in the cabinets, “How long has it been since somebody went shopping?”

Those who lived in the manor gave a collective shrug. 

Grilled Cheese sandwiches were set down on the plates and the former bots dug in with various exclamations of wonder. Even The Jon, who had eaten the night before, gave a moan of delight at the taste of the warm sandwich. He ate grilled cheese all the time, but had never really tasted it before now. And it was glorious. 

The Spine did a slightly better job at controlling his enthusiasm about eating as he laid down the plans for the day. The first plan was going and getting more food, as Sam was already complaining about having used up the last of the cheese on breakfast. That would be a task for The Spine, Michael, and Sam. Meanwhile, Matt, Steve, and Rabbit would be sent to get clothes and other such needs from the human’s apartments. Shouldn’t take them more than an hour or so. 

Of course, then they got outside and realized another problem. Robots, for obvious reasons, didn’t have driver’s licenses, and while The Spine and his brothers had been programmed to pilot just about any kind of human vehicle made, they hadn’t actually needed to do so since the last war. 

“Guess I’ll be driving,” The Spine sat down in the driver’s seat of Michael’s car, looking over the controls with apprehension. It wasn’t a troop truck, how hard could it be?

“You’d better not wreck my car,” Michael warned as he carefully folded himself into the passenger seat. The car sunk on its suspension with a groan as Sam slid into the backseat as well. 

Over at Steve’s car, Steve and Matt were, understandably, nervous about letting Rabbit of all people drive. They couldn’t deny that the local police would definitely not appreciate having “those crazy Walter bots” driving a car, though, and the option that was least like to get them pulled over won out. 

Truth be told, The Spine wasn’t a –terrible- driver, just a slow and overly cautious one. Which was at least better than a reckless one, so Michael and Sam weren’t about to complain. 

.

When they reached the grocery store and piled out of the car, Michael felt a sudden sense of impending doom that only intensified as they walked into the store. Now, Michael Reed was not the kind of person who cared particularly what strangers thought of him, as evidenced by his rather colorful wardrobe and penchant for odd accessories. But it was one thing to walk around as an oddly dressed person and another thing entirely to be an extremely conspicuous seven-foot-tall robot in a grocery store full of regular people. 

Those who lived in close proximity of Walter Manor were somewhat used to seeing the robots out doing such mundane things as shopping, but that didn’t mean they didn’t stare and point. Michael puffed steam in embarrassment when a man who was clearly a tourist caught sight of him and dropped his basket in surprise. His finely-tuned and incredibly sensitive audio receivers picked up on every little whisper and gasp people made. No wonder The Spine often went out in human makeup and baggy clothing, if he went out at all. 

Michael wished he had a hood to pull up over his head, or that he had at least grabbed The Spine’s fedora before they left the house. Sometime to make him feel a little less like a giant silver spotlight. 

The Spine picked up on his friend’s discomfort and looked apologetic, “I’m sorry for making you come.”

“No, it’s fine,” Michael waved him off. The Spine dealt with this every time they went out, he could handle it for an hour or so.

Spotting something on the bottom shelf, Michael slowly knelt down to reach it, steam puffing from his back. There was a small squeak, and the engineer looked over to see a very small child, perhaps aged two or three, staring at him with a wide-eyed expression. Michael opened his mouth to say hello, but instead of words he exhaled a plume of steam exhaust. Putting the most earnest smile on his face that he could manage, he tried again, “Hello, there.” 

The toddler screwed up their little face and gave a wail, summoning a young woman who scooped the child up into her arms and quickly scurried away. Michael’s face fell as he slowly returned to his feet, long limbs taking a moment to straighten back out into their default configuration. Scaring small children was never a fun experience (well, except maybe for Rabbit. The jury was still out on that.)

The Spine watched with an expression of guilt.

 

While Sam wandered off to get his organic produce, Michael took it upon himself to fetch the kind of bad microwavable food that would be easy and quick to cook. He began to fill their cart with Hot Pockets and chicken nuggets and pizza, trusting Sam to get actual food. 

“Oh, we should probably get ice cream too, huh?” Michael commented as they turned down the freezer aisle, “The Jon and Rabbit would kill us if we didn’t bring any back for them.”

“As long as they don’t make themselves sick on it,” His brothers had a penchant for eating ice cream cartons at a time. While that didn’t have much effect on robot systems, The Spine had spent enough time around young Walters to know humans usually didn’t fare so well ingesting sweets in massive quantities. 

Opening the freezer door, The Spine grabbed a likely looking carton of ice cream and gasped, dropping the carton in surprise. The ice cream hit the ground with a thunk and rolled to clink off Michael’s feet. 

“Something wrong?” Michael asked as he bent down to add the ice cream to their basket. 

“Just surprised is all,” The Spine stared at his hand for a moment, “I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold.”

Michael raised an eyebrow, but realized his friend was right. The sensors in his plating told him that the carton was cold, but it wasn’t the same as that burning sensation created when the human hand grabbed something frozen. 

“I guess you guys are going to experience all kinds of new things.”

“We all are.” 

The group reconvened in the produce department, with Sam adding his spoils to their basket. There was a fumble at the check out as The Spine attempted to discreetly ask Michael what his debit card pin was, then they headed back out to the car. 

 

Back at the Manor, it turned out the other car had beaten them back, though only by a little bit. Matt hefted the duffles full of clothing and other essentials since Steve, like Rabbit, was banned from lifting anything heavy or breakable. Nobody wanted him to have pieces fall off. 

“Need any help, Michael?” The Spine offered as they popped the trunk to get at the groceries. 

“I think I’ll be fine,” Michael looped the handles of the bags over his hands and arms and lifted them all out of the trunk in one go. The weight barely strained his systems, despite there being at least fifty pounds of food. 

The Spine, meanwhile, grabbed the lone twelve-pack of soda still left in the trunk and nearly dropped it in surprise. The thing was –heavy-. 

The group made their way back into the Manor, where everything seemed to still be as they left it.


End file.
